Never Again
by Magi Silverwolf
Summary: A friendly meeting in a pub turns into a lesson about St. Patrick. (HC fill; MC4A fill)


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.

 **Warnings:** This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. This piece in particular has references to a past genocide based on religious intolerance. Please exercise understanding of personal boundaries before and during reading.

 **Author's Notes (Things to Know):** A tichel is a traditional Jewish headcovering; the facts about St. Patrick and Ireland are 100% true and a lot of pagans see St. Patrick's Day as a day of remembrance and mourning.

 **Author's Note(s):** Group activities are a _pain_ to coordinate and I do not envy Hermione & Angelina the headache of trying to juggle the schedules of twenty-plus people. Also, it should be obvious from reading all the established relationships and the fact that all of my works reject the Epilogue (because this is fanfiction and I _can_ fix problems like that), but this fic is _not epilogue compliant_.

 **Notice:** This story was previously published in a collection in which it did not belong. It is now being published as a standalone story with all competition-centric notes not in the Block removed.

 **Challenge/Competition Block** :  
 **Stacked with:** Houses Competition (Term 3); Shadows of Consequence; Lessons Learned; Not Commonwealth; Seriously Important (Not); Sky's the Limit; Terms of Service; By Any Other Name; Fem Power Challenge; Hufflepuff MC; Gryffindor MC; Ethnic & Present; Anti-Stalker Ships; Truth  
 **House** : Hufflepuff  
 **Year:** 6th  
 **Category:** Additional (1000-3000 words)  
 **Additional Requirement:** A happy occasion  
 **Prompt:** St. Patrick's Day (event)  
 **Representation:** BC Use; Life Lessons; Harry Potter; Slice of Life plot; Queer Ships; Aurors & Healers; Club as Family; Multiple Awesome Women  
 **Bonus Challenge(s):** _Machismo_ (Sensitivity); Second Verse (Not a Lamp; _Ladylike_ \- Competitive; Clio's Conclusion; Non-Traditional; _Found Family_ ; Middle Name; Nightingale; Unwanted Advice; _Unicorn_ ; Three's Company; Odd Feathers; Misshapen Pods; _Sitting Hummingbird_ )  
 **Word Count** : 1479

-= LP =-  
Never Again  
-= LP =-

The original roster for the D.A. had fallen into the habit of trying to get together at least once a month after the war had ended. Normally, Hermione was in charge of the arrangements, but Angelina picked it up almost as frequently, since she was used to the juggling that came with planning any kind of group activity. More often than not, the group ended up at a pub of some sort, where they could get both food and drink, and due to the group's popularity in the magical world, it was a Muggle one to reduce the chance of being swarmed by well-wishers and naysayers alike.

Not everyone could make every single meeting, even with the joint efforts of Hermione and Angelina. Luna was often out of the country and out of the contact range. (Though after she had gotten together with Neville and Harry, the magizoologist had started coming more frequently. That also meant that both Harry and Neville actually made it, too, instead of getting caught up in whatever case they were working on at the time.) Katie and Ginny also were often out of the country, as their Quidditch teams traveled throughout the League. (Meetings leading up to their teams facing each other was always a bit tense as both women were competitive. More than one 'good-natured trash-talk' exchange was kept from coming to blows only by Alicia and Michael grabbing their respective partner and distracting them.) Even with the tension between Marietta and the rest of the group, it was actually Seamus and Dean that were the most absent.

Which is why the group was a pleasantly surprised to see the couple on the March meeting on the sixth year after the Battle of Hogwarts. As their norm, the meeting was at a Muggle pub. Everyone was in the appropriate type of clothing for the venue—even if Luna appeared to have convinced Harry to wear a poet's shirt in a gentle shade of blue that matched Neville's eyes. Seamus' choice of a t-shirt and jeans didn't stand out initially, despite how his bare arms revealed a pair of matching snake tattoos coiling around his forearms.

It wasn't until Luna took off her comfortable dove-gray cardigan to reveal a similar pattern on her forearms, painted in woad and matching the shade of Harry's shirt, that the rest of the group realized that none of the partners in either relationship worn even a lick of green, despite the date. Their wondering might have stopped there—dismissed as unimportant due to the fact that St. Patrick's Day was more an American thing than British and Muggle at that—had the two not placed the fist of their wand hand over their breastbone and spoken the same phrase in unison.

" _Never forgotten; never forgiven; never again_."

"Never again," Hannah echoed as she approached the table with Susan in tow. She was wearing a black and dark gray tichel, not even a wisp of hair visible just as it hadn't been since she had married Susan the year prior. Susan looked half-asleep (a state shared by Harry and Neville) despite the fact that it wasn't even six o'clock yet. But then the Auror Corps had been running themselves ragged chasing the remnants of an underground ring that had been trading in human body parts for potion ingredients, so the state of the three Aurors in the group was not surprising. Hannah got her wife into a chair before she continued speaking. "What are we commemorating?"

"The slaughter of the Celts," Seamus said, his accent particularly strong. Dean's hand never left his husband's back and Seamus had no issue with leaning into the offered comfort. "Tis the day to remember the crime, after all."

"But St. Patrick was revered in Ireland," Hermione said, her forehead wrinkling in her confusion. Much of her hair had escaped the bun she had forced it into when she and Ron had arrived a half hour ago and she brushed impatiently at the wisps closest to her face. "That's what all the books say."

"He is revered," Seamus agreed, though anger laced the words, " _by Christians_. Anyone who holds to the Old Ways still remembers what he did to earn his sainthood and they don't honor him any more than someone would Hitler or the Dark Lord, and for the same reason. He would have erased an entire people from existence. That's not something worth honoring."

"What about how he drove the snakes out of Ireland? Surely not having to worry about being bitten would be a good thing?" Hermione looked like she had won something until both of Seamus' hands hit the table with a thud loud enough that it drew attention from the other patrons of the pub. The bartender looked like he was debating interfering, eying both the pair's tensed forms and the size of the group surrounding them. Used to working with the worries of owners now that he was a team leader, Harry signaled the man that everything was fine.

"Hermione," Harry interjected tiredly, "Ireland had no snakes other than the Celts."

"But if Ireland had no snakes, then what did St. Patrick drive into the sea?"

Harry could almost hear the thoughts tumbling around his friend's head as she processed her own question. Even after all these years, Hermione still hadn't outgrown the habit of trusting her books over what people were telling her. It had saved them repeatedly while they were still in school, but the more Harry experienced the world with all its nuances, the more he realized that there was a lot of things that didn't make it into books or into them accurately. He could see why she and Luna tended to clash as often as they did. Both were beyond brilliant but whereas Hermione preferred learning everything from books, Luna was driven to gather information in more direct manners. Both styles had their purposes but times like now, Harry wished that Hermione had developed more flexibility than she tended to display as a default.

"Why do you think that Seamus and Luna are wearing snakes, Hermione?"

"I thought they were celebrating St. Patrick's Day," Hermione answered, starting to gain the lost tone she always did when confronted with information that damages the certainty and trust she had invested in her book-knowledge. "Seamus is Irish, after all, and it's the seventeenth of March. I assumed that it was just a wizarding version of celebrating it."

"Didn't your parents ever tell you what assuming does?" Hannah asked, though not meanly. Susan was leaning on her shoulder, mostly asleep and clearly unaware of the tension in their group. Her fingers were worrying the hanging portion of Hannah's tichel, particularly the embroidered diamond pattern that stood in pale blue relief against the black cloth. Occasionally, the lights of the pub flashed off her gold wedding band. Just as absently, Hannah ran a hand through Susan's red hair (kept short for easy care and lack of potential complications in combat).

"I know this one," Katie announced brightly. "It makes an ass out of you and me!"

"It's a memorial," Luna explained, sounding far more present than she ever had as an isolated teen trying to escape the loneliness that came with being _different_. Harry lifted one of her hands and kissed her wrist, overwhelmed momentarily with a surge of affection for his quirky girlfriend. She smiled at him before continuing her explanation. "St. Patrick could have destroyed the Irish Celts, but they survived and wearing snakes and woad-blue is to celebrate _that_ , while others celebrate his supposed victory."

"The snakes also show that he missed a few," Seamus added. His smile was the same one that usually meant something was about to explode somewhere. "Da has a badge with that on it. Mum got it for him while they were dating."

"Is that why they were looking so sappy earlier?" Dean asked. "I thought it might have been more than just our news."

"Oh, it was probably our news—"

"Don't keep us in suspense!" Katie protested, moving to the edge of her seat. Alicia rolled her eyes at her girlfriend's impatience. Dean and Seamus exchanged matching grins before facing the group and speaking in unison.

"We're getting a turtle!"

The group groaned collectively before bursting into shocked laughter. They had been fooled into thinking it was going to be something like when Angelina and George had announced their pending firstborn a few months prior. They had been set up a bit for the prank, but it felt good to laugh and went a good ways towards dissipating the remaining tension from the argument.

It was nice to feel that after everything, life would always continue.

As long as they could remember the struggles of the past, they would never again face the same sorrow.

 _Never forgotten._

 _Never forgiven._

 _Never_ _again_.

-= LP =-  
An Ending  
-= LP =-


End file.
